


Foxtrot

by ballpoint



Category: Marvel
Genre: 616 - Freeform, Angst, Gen, New Avengers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-25
Updated: 2008-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 14:28:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballpoint/pseuds/ballpoint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is an old argument between them, almost a foxtrot in its stylised, quick movement. Both men fumble a turn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foxtrot

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer**: Characters and situations are the property of Stan Lee and Marvel Comics. No profit is being made off this fan-written work.  
> **Notes**: British spellings, because I'm... British. Bring chocolate. New Avengers.

_It's 11:30pm on a Sunday night, and I should be in bed,_ Steve thinks.

Taking advantage of a rare, quiet weekend, the others are either in their rooms or away.

Tony was slated to be here yesterday, but something came up, and he sent word via various media that he'd have to miss out on the activities they'd planned for Saturday, with profuse apologies.

_It's 11:30 pm on a Sunday night, and To-_, that thought is cut off by his attention drawn to footfalls on the stairs. Absently, Steve fingers the curve of the plate beside him. It is no substitute for his shield, but it is a weapon in terms of temporary distraction, giving him breathing space to go on the offensive. Then he relaxes, as Tony Stark's form looms in the door frame. Minding his manners, Tony gently raps his fingers on the kitchen doorway.

Tony looks a bit rough. His hair is damp, and curling at the edges, he has a day's worth of stubble creating a shadow around his chin, and he's already managed to lose his jacket somewhere, and is loosening his tie (a maroon coloured number), and unbuttoning the top two buttons of his dress shirt with the other hand.

Tony pauses at the door, taking in the scene in front of him, and inwardly, Steve rolls his eyes. He knows well the dance that they are going to do.

 

Steve is seated by the kitchen island, magazines spread out all across its surface, a lake of newsprint. There are headlines written across the tops in varying fonts ranging from old English to Gotham, with colours ranging from black blocks to red in 72-point font.

The papers themselves range from the scurrilous tabloid of the _Daily Bugle_, to the broadsheets of the _Times_, both New York and London.

"Tony," Steve says, "I'm just �"" he does a vague hand wave over the sheets of the newsprint, and there are smudges of black on the tips of Steve's fingers, on the backs of his hands.

Tony shakes his head, as he moves to sit at the stool across from his friend.

"Jesus, Steve," Tony laughs in mock horror. "Seriously. There are better ways to do this."

This argument between them is old, almost a foxtrot in its stylized, quick movement. Steve does the first turn. "Paper is the best technology, it's portable, and when stored properly, almost indestructible."

Tony follows and keeps in step.

"But it wastes time, trees, and resources. With a few e-alerts and RSS feeds, you can amass mass quantities of news in record time. You can access them from anywhere with a feed. C'mon Steve-" the forward step �" "let me do this for you."

The quickstep to the left and Steve does not disappoint. "No, Tony. I'm fine."

The dance then completed, they look at each other and grin.

There are certain things that neither of them will change the other's mind about, but they do try anyway.

"We missed you at basketball last night," Steve turns a page, the lights overhead turns the dusting of the hair on the backs of his hands to gilt.

"Tennis is more my game," Tony murmurs. This is true, Steve knows, Tony told him that all those years ago when he came for pointers on hand to hand combat. Jan has verified Tony's story, both of them knowing each other through the veneer of East Coast society.

According to the strictures of his class, Tony was raised on tennis and squash, playing both for fun from kindergarten straight through to prep school.

Steve, Cage and Sam are good basketball players; fast, strong and agile. Tony can trash talk, and is not above playing dirty, but ability wise; he is not as good as the others.

"Sam sends his regards."

"With _the flipped bird_, I'm sure."

Steve has the grace not to say anything at all. He is friends with both men, and well aware of their mutual antipathy.

"How was the game?" Tony asks, now standing, idly taking a sheet of newsprint and folding it. Tony is a man who cannot stay still for long. He always has to be twiddling, folding, and playing with something. _Trying to make a better mousetrap_, Steve thinks, watching Tony lining up folds to an angle, and sharpening the creases with his index finger.

"It was all right," Steve rolls his shoulders, then begins the process of shuffling the papers together, making sure the pages are tucked in, that there are no dog-ears at the corners. "Peter played, so we could play two on two."

"Better than me, right?"

"Sorry," Steve laughs, folding a broadsheet in four, and then putting it to one side. There is a patch of the maple counter peeking through. "It was nice actually winning for once."

"Yuk it up," Tony says, but there is no heat to his voice. But then again, Steve thinks, that is what makes Tony hard to read at times. He can affect amusement in many an unpleasant situation, and short of alcohol, guerilla press or mind control, Tony can keep up a good game face.

"How was your trip?" Steve asks, looking at the time displayed by the clock to the right of the door. The clock is on _this_ side of kitsch, which is Mary Jane's way of trying to turn the HQ into a home.

It is in the shape of a pot-bellied bear in a red top eating honey, and there is a comforting tick tock that accompanies the swing of the pendulum.

Steve has seen Tony roll his eyes at the clock from time to time, probably wondering what his decorator would say, after dumping all this money into the Tower's rooms, making them sleek and sharp, only for the aesthetic to be muted by pot-bellied bear clocks and old-fashioned tick tock noises.

It is now 12:00am, Monday morning, and not too late.

Besides, Steve notes, Tony looks tired. You have to be talked down from that sort of fatigue before giving into sleep and -

"It was all right," Tony frowns at this, idly rubs his temple with two fingers, leaving black smudges of newsprint behind. "I had some contracts to sign, people to do, things to see."

Tony is being deliberately vague, but Steve knows this dance as well.

Tony Stark, despite being a superhero, is an inventor and businessman first, and several of his business deals are with the highest echelons of government. Steve has been a soldier before a hero, and knows that there are some things each man has to keep a secret from the other. No matter how close they might be.

"And how many people did you do?" Steve waggles his brows, and Tony huffs a laugh, rubbing at his nose, leaving a streak of black across the bridge of his nose. "No comment," he says, reaching for another sheet of paper, and starts folding in earnest.

They both know that Tony plays hard as well as works hard, and that a part of the spoils are the women that Tony spars with (and a few men, if that old rumour is anything to go by. Tony never answers, never rises to that ribbing, and Steve never asks, because Tony's association with Henry Hellrung cemented his sobriety).

 

There is a comfortable silence as Steve watches Tony working. There are newsprint smudges on his nose and left temple, and his fingertips are black with newsprint. Tony is still half-dressed: the cuffs of his dress shirt rolled up mid way between wrists and elbows, his collar undone so that there is a glimpse of white under shirt underneath.

Steve knows that Tony's in the zone, where he is just working, all pistons go; all focus on the task in front of him, to the exclusion of everything else. The… _thing_ that he is making looks like a profusion of spikes, like the prickly head of a thistle rose, or the stylized version of a multi-planed star going nova.

So far, the piece is six inches wide… and growing, with Tony ripping at bits of paper, after he has scored it with fingers and spittle.

Quietly, Steve finishes folding his papers, and pushes them close to Tony's elbow. He then shifts from the stool, setting his feet on the floor.

"Don't go," Tony murmurs, holding up a hand in earnest, yet still eyeing his structure. "Stay."

"What is that?" Steve asks, walking around the island to stand beside Tony. He is near enough to smell the cedar and fig notes of Tony's cologne, the starch in his shirt collars (Jarvis is a gentleman's gentleman, he remembers), and being slightly taller, Steve is able to see the flutter of Tony's lashes as he speaks.

"It's a stellated icosahedron," Tony begins, "it's just an exercise in building new polyhedra in three dimensions, trying to see how and at what angles the planes can meet again."

"I thought it was origami."

Tony smiles. For the first time tonight, it reaches his eyes, and he does not look so tired. "It is. Rumiko learnt it at school as a girl, and made me a paper crane. The crane was sweet, but the process -"

That is what gets Tony; it is the desire to figure out things, to build from the ground up.

"It's something." Steve says. As a dilettante artist, he admires many things about Tony's effort: the asceticism of the medium �" the humble newspaper, the sharpness of the edges, the _movement_ of the structure.

"Hmmm," Tony says, resting his head on folded arms. He has completed the effort, now he can nod off.

Steve knows Tony too well to take offence at such behaviour, so he curls his left arm around Tony's waist, and urges Tony to place his arm across Steve's shoulders.

"Hup," Steve says. "How long have you been up?"

"Thirty six hours." Tony is too tired to feint, to parse definitions of what does Steve mean by _being up_. "I got some information that was too important to ignore."

"Hmmm." Steve responds, but Tony is absolutely almost dead weight now, and half hobbling (because Tony flat out _refuses_ to be carried in a fire-fighter's hold), half-dragging, they both get to Tony's bedroom, and on a huff of breath, Steve unceremoniously dumps Tony on the bed.

It is the first time that Steve has been in Stark's personal living quarters, and is startled by how relatively Spartan it is. King size bed with the ubiquitous high thread count sheets in navy blue and white, a few chunky pieces of furniture dotted about the room. There is an _en suite_ bathroom and a walk in closet. Tony's workroom seems much more homely than this.

 

Steve knows that the living quarters of Stark towers was originally supposed to be Tony's brand new spanking bachelor pad (prompting a sarcastic, "Pimping ain't easy, huh?" from Peter), and the rest of the rooms are sublimely finished, that sort of open aesthetic that appeals to _The Architectural Digest _ crowd, while this room is not.

Tony has curled into himself on the bed, and Steve winces at Tony's shoes scuffing the sheets, and at his blackened hands already smudging the immaculate white border of the pillowcases.

"Tony, you need to change."

"I know," Tony sighs, opening one blurry eye at Steve. "Soon."

Steve sighs, Tony is enough of a libertine to crash in wrinkled clothing until whenever he stirs, and Steve is too much from a time when you _never_ slept in your good clothing, no matter how tired you were.

The black on Tony's hands snags his attention, and biting his inner cheek, Steve grabs a wash cloth from Tony's bathroom, and dampens it under the tap.

Steve's back in five minutes and Tony's sitting up, leaning against the headboard of the bed.

"Tony."

"Fine." With great effort, Tony begins to unbutton his shirt.

Between their efforts, Tony is undressed, and Steve finds out that Tony wears jaunty hounds tooth patterned socks in flecks of maroon and gold �" "it goes with the tie" and �"

"Tony," Steve huffs, unable to control his laughter, but mindful of the other sleeping occupants in the space, he keeps his voice down.

"Captain America boxers?"

"Gag gift," Tony yawns. "Hey, watch the hands."

"They've got newsprint on them, and Jarvis does enough," Steve retorts, but he has gentled his touch. Tony has nimble fingers, not so broad palms. They do not shake a fraction as much as they used to, when Tony had crawled into the bottle at a low point in his life and might have stayed there.

Silence falls around them as Steve finishes his task. He has gotten Tony's shirt off, and leaves his under shirt on. That is enough for the bonds of friendship, Steve thinks.

He is seated at the edge of the bed, while Tony is there, half sitting, and half lying down. The lighting in the room is at 20 percent, enough to wash the colours of the room in tints of tea. The glass has been treated to dim the bright lights of Manhattan, so that they do not disturb the darkness within.

Tony shifts his body to one side, and pats the space on the bed beside him. Steve brings his legs off the ground, and wriggles into the space that Tony has vacated for him. It is a big bed, a king size, which holds both their bodies. Steve, like Tony is half sitting, half lying down.

His sweat pant clad legs are out stretched beside Tony's bare ones, and he takes in the lean muscles of Tony's thighs, his calves, looking for any new nicks or cuts that Tony might have gathered in his alter ego as Iron man. There are no new ones as far as he can see, but his eyes linger a little longer than necessary.

"What if," Tony's voice breaks the silence. It is slower than he normally talks, because as they both know, Tony is dog-tired. "What if I told you I can see the future?"

"You?" Steve says disbelievingly, because Tony is not given to divination, or tarot or any other agents of chance. Tony is not even rooted to a faith as far as Steve knows, not unless you count clinging to sobriety by force of will in the face of hardship a kind of higher belief.

"There are ways," Tony shrugs his shoulders carelessly, but his voice is as sombre as Steve has ever heard it. "Essentially, I look at yesterdays, surf the currents of where society goes, avoid the bumps of obsolescence, and loop on the cycles of tomorrow."

"So?" Steve says, and ticks it off as one of the six incredible things he will have heard before breakfast. "Isn't that what all industrialists do? You observe, take notes, strategize-"

"Yeah," Tony says, "But unlike a lot of other people, I'm good at it. Like, Reed Richards is amazing, he uses mathematical theories and equations to work things out to minute detail, whereas I tend to gauge based on the science of technology, and figuring out what people want before they do. But there are other things on the wind… and..."

"And you think you know what's coming."

"What do you want to know?" Tony is now looking at Steve, and Steve's close enough to Tony to see the pulse beating at the base of his neck.

"Will newspapers have a future?"

At this, Tony's face softens into a rueful grin, and he shakes his head sadly. "Not like how you think they will. They'll have to evolve, with the state of traditional media as it is now…"

"That's too bad," Steve shakes his head. "I like newspapers. I like the fact that I can buy them from Ernie on 23rd and fifth. To… speak with people in the city. To connect with whom we put our lives on the line to defend. RSS feeds aren't the same as-"

"No," Tony says, understanding the sentiment and Steve is grateful. "I'm sorry."

"Then, I don't need to know the future." Steve says, not caring if he sounds a bit cold. "Besides," he says, indulging in a rare vein of cynicism, "the future might be all wars anyway. Just like the past. I was born on the tail end of one Great War, then fought another, and now, with things are what they are, there will always be times of conflict. It's a constant, like…"

"Death and taxes," Tony picks up the thread. Steve absently squeezes Tony's arm. He knows more about those facts of life than most.

"Yeah," Steve nods, "death and taxes. But-" he smiles, because he is in his friend's bed, sharing warmth and picturing Tony Stark peering at the patterns of tea-leaves at the bottom of porcelain china cups trying to decipher the future is hilarious.

"Steve," there is a rustle of bedclothes, and Steve drags his eyes from looking at their bare feet to Tony's face. Tony's pupils are dilated in the low light, but Steve can see the bits of dark blue iris. Tony's worrying his lower lip with his teeth, and suddenly, Steve's senses are prickling with awareness.

"Tony."

Their faces are close now; close enough for Steve to smell coffee and mints on Tony's breath, for him to feel the moist puffs of air as Tony speaks. Tony's voice is soft, and Steve irrationally thinks about illicit whispers in church. Tony's fingers ghost against his jaw and Steve swallows. There is a hitch in this movement, and Steve is tempted to lean forward, close his eyes, and ... He has never thought about Tony in that way before, and it scares him at how easy it might be to close the distance between them, and see what happens.

However, unsure of the new steps, he gently grabs Tony's wrist and holds it away.

The moment is gone, never to return.

Therefore, Steve focuses on the _unsaid_ in Tony's words. There is a message there, but he cannot decipher it, because he has not asked the right questions.

 

"What are you trying to say?"

"I can't tell you. I really can't. Not yet."

"Will I know when it happens?"

"Yeah," Tony swallows, dropping his hand, and looking away. "I can probably deflect it, but-"

But you can't stop it, Steve thinks, whatever it is.

"Can I help?"

 

It has gone quiet again, the only sound is Tony's even breathing, and Steve notes that Tony has gone to sleep, and does not begrudge Tony his slumber. He notes that the temperature in the room is relatively warm, so Tony might not need the covers.

Sighing, he grabs the throw from the foot of the bed, and covers them both; Tony snuggles nearer to him, his head tucked under Steve's chin. This is strange in that it does _not_ feel strange. It is like having a sleepover; they have had jokes and a vaguely scary story.

Complete with Captain America shield boxers.

 

"Just think about it, when it happens. Just… _think_." Tony's voice is a sleepy murmur.

"I can do that."

"That has to be enough, then." Tony says, and links his fingers through Steve's.

Then Tony is gone, rendered insensate by sleep, and Steve is still awake, wondering at the twists and turns of this evening, half-wishing that Tony had not said a word, much less speaking in addled cryptograms.

Nevertheless, Steve is glad that he waited up for Tony, because there is one more link to the bond of friendship, one more dance that they have done.

Quickly, before he can even think it through, Steve brings their joined hands together, and briefly presses their linked fingers to his lips.

Whatever it is Tony cannot speak about, they'll be ready.

Whatever it is.

 

On that thought, Steve closes his eyes, and sleeps until morning.

Fin.


End file.
